In another experiment, M. Huber confined a swarm so that they had access to nothing beside honey, and five times successively removed the combs with the precaution of preventing the escape of the bees from the apartment. On each occasion they produced new combs, which puts it beyond dispute that honey is sufficient to effect the secretion of wax without the aid of pollen. Instead of supplying the bees with honey, they were subsequently fed, exclusively, on pollen and fruit; but though they were kept in captivity for eight days under a bell-glass, with a comb containing nothing but farina, they neither made wax nor was any secreted under the rings. In another series of experiments, in which bees were fed with different sorts of sugar, it was found that nearly one-sixth of the sugar was converted into wax, dark-coloured sugar yielding more than double the quantity of refined sugar.
It may not be out of place to subjoin the few anatomical and physiological facts which have been ascertained by Huber, Maddle, Jurine, and Latreille.
Worker-bee, magnified—showing the position of the scales of Wax.
The first stomach of the worker-bee, according to Latreille,[AG] is appropriated to the reception of honey, but this is never found in the second stomach, which is surrounded with muscular rings, and from one end to the other very much resembles a cask covered with hoops. It is within these rings that the wax is produced; but the secreting vessels for this purpose have hitherto escaped the researches of the acutest naturalists. Huber, however, plausibly enough conjectures that they are contained in the internal lining of the wax-pockets, which consists of a cellular substance reticulated with hexagons. The wax-pockets themselves, which are concealed by the overlapping of the rings, may be seen by pressing the abdomen of a worker-bee so as to lengthen it, and separate the rings further from each other. When this has been done, there may be seen on each of the four intermediate hoops of the belly, and separated by what may be called the keel (carina), two whitish-coloured pouches, of a soft texture, and in the form of a trapezium. Within, the little plates or scales of wax are produced from time to time, and are removed and employed as we shall presently see. We may remark, that it is chiefly the wax-workers which produce the wax; for though the nurse-bees are furnished with wax-pockets, they secrete it only in very small quantities; while in the queen-bee, and the males or drones, no pockets are discoverable.
Abdomen of Wax-worker Bee.
“All the scales,” says Huber, “are not alike in every bee, for a difference is perceptible in consistence, shape, and thickness; some are so thin and transparent as to require a magnifier to be recognised, or we have been able to discover nothing but spiculæ similar to those of water freezing. Neither the spiculæ nor the scales rest immediately on the membrane of the pocket, a slight liquid medium is interposed, serving to lubricate the joinings of the rings, or to render the extraction of the scales easier, as otherwise they might adhere too firmly to the sides of the pockets.” M. Huber has seen the scales so large as to project beyond the rings, being visible without stretching the segments, and of a whitish yellow, from greater thickness lessening their transparency. These shades of difference in the scales of various bees, their enlarged dimensions, the fluid interposed beneath them, the correspondence between the scale and the size and form of the pockets, seem to infer the oozing of this substance through the membranes whereon it is moulded. He was confirmed in this opinion by the escape of a transparent fluid on piercing the membrane, whose internal surface seemed to be applied to the soft parts of the belly. This he found coagulated in cooling, when it resembled wax, and again liquefied on exposure to heat. The scales themselves, also, melted and coagulated like wax.[AH]
By chemical analysis, however, it appears that the wax of the rings is a more simple substance than that which composes the cells; for the latter is soluble in ether, and in spirit of turpentine, while the former is insoluble in ether, and but partially soluble in spirit of turpentine. It should seem to follow, that if the substance found lying under the rings be really the elements of wax, it undergoes some subsequent preparation after it is detached; and that the bees, in short, are capable of impregnating it with matter, imparting to it whiteness and ductility, whereas in its unprepared state it is only fusible.